


All the way from China

by lotesse



Category: Suzanne - Leonard Cohen (Song)
Genre: Babies, Bittersweet, Memories, Multi, Threesome - F/F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't know what Suzanne has done, if she's still there, if she's changed, grown old, died, forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the way from China

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emei/gifts).



By the time the baby is two, Jesus has walked so far across the water that she's lost touch with him. The last she'd heard he'd been racing sailboats in Australia, thinking about moving to Tasmania - but that had been months ago.

The baby is hers, born from her body; his, by the contributions of his flesh; but she still thinks of it as mostly Suzanne's. It never would have come into being without Suzanne. Suzanne, who in the candlelit marine darkness had been the electric current that made their circuit come alive.

She's gone too, left Montréal to go back, baby in her arms, to her native American midwest. Leaving the wide brackish expanse of the St. Lawrence for little freshwater lakes that dot the landscape like malformed pearls. She doesn't know what Suzanne has done, if she's still there, if she's changed, grown old, died, forgotten.

She makes little picture books for the baby, pen-and-ink on plain paper, spiral-bound. Wordless stories about a princess and a horse, a boy and a cat. The baby traces the animal tracks she draws down the page, stares for hours in quiet absorption at each “painting” in the art museum, dark baby-blue eyes fixed on the same point as the little pen-and-ink boy's. Each page holds a new hand-drawn frame, and each contains a monotone representation of a painting. Sunflowers that she'd drawn with Van Gogh in mind, remembering how much she'd loved looking at the reproduction prints in her art teacher's classroom as a little girl. Cubist boats with geometric sails. Sunrises that make her think of angels and intercession and transcendence. She doesn't know what they make the baby think of.

She gives each painting a name, written underneath it in block capitals. She'd smiled when she'd titled the Cézannesque still-life, fruit and cups on a batik-covered table, “TEA AND ORANGES THAT COME ALL THE WAY FROM CHINA.” And each time the baby traces the ink-line curve of the orange rind that lies discarded beside the white cup with a chubby wavering fingertip, she smiles again.

What does it matter if there's something sad in her smile?


End file.
